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Investment Q&A

Not investment advice or solicitation to buy/sell securities. Do your own due diligence and/or consult an advisor.

Q: My wife and I are in our 70's with RIFs mainly focused on income producing stocks.

Our annual withdrawals equate to approximately 10% of our investments, so currently, we expect to be able to live our lives out without running out of funds.

As part of my financial sector, I have a 3% position in PWF, which has been underwater for quite a while, but currently pays a 5.31% dividend. I know you tend to favour SLF, and I wonder if it is worth switching into SLF, even though it only pays a 3.44% dividend.

Your thoughts and comparisons between the two over the next five years please.
Read Answer Asked by John on May 28, 2018
Q: I am doing a bit of spring clean up on my portfolio. My question relates to insurance companies. I have a 3/4 position in Sun Life and 1/2 positions in Manulife and Power Financial. Manulife was purchased for its Asian exposure and Power Financial for its European exposure and its dividend. What insurer would you eliminate and is there a reason to keep more than one Canadian insurer?
Read Answer Asked by eric on April 03, 2018
Q: Good Day Please rate in order for dividend safety, dividend growth and stock growth. I have no life insurers in my portfolio. Looking for an 8 year hold
Read Answer Asked by Gordon on February 05, 2018
Q: I am interested in buying GWO but wonder if I should be buying PWF instead? PWF has a holding company discount of over 15% which seems to imply that I am getting IGM “for free”. But then there is a discount on POW too and I don’t understand the two-level holding company structure -can you explain this? Why does POW not issue POW shares to PWF holders to eliminate one of the levels? Out of GWO, PWF and POW, which one would you buy?
Read Answer Asked by David on January 15, 2018
Q: Each of the above stocks I have owned for a number of years and am enjoying a good profit. However, in the past year they have just drifted and are simply no longer growth stocks. I am considering selling all or parts of these positions. Could you rank order them for me in terms of what would you sell first and what % of the position. I understand you might also suggest not to sell any of them and in fact add to them. This type of reassurance would be welcome as clearly I have lost conviction in these names. There is no rush here and I don't need to raise capital for other purchases.
Read Answer Asked by Chris on September 20, 2017
Q: I'm a retired, income-oriented investor. I own PWF, GWO and IGM in a diversified income portfolio. All three pay decent dividends (IGM highest at 5.5%). PWF owns the other two and has European exposure through Pargesa. GWO is my only CDN Lifeco holding. Is IGM likely to be impacted by new CRM2 rules about fee disclosure? Should I keep all 3 of these? If not, which should go? Your opinions/suggestions are requested.

Thank you,
IslandJohn
Read Answer Asked by John on September 05, 2017
Q: I am helping my 65-year-old mother reallocate about 20% of her growth and income portfolio in collaboration with her financial advisor; the major move is to decrease the very large position she has in bank stocks. For most of this chunk (17% say), her advisor has suggested an even-split combination of the following (in light of the interest rate hike, and to provide additional dividends): Telus (T), Pure Multi-Family REIT (RUF.UN), Slate Retail REIT (SRT.UN), Power Financial (PWF), Manulife (MFC), and Altagas (ALA) (in anticipation of the potential WGL acquisition). Would you replace any of these (and if so with what)? Would you give greater weight to any? Thanks!
Read Answer Asked by Christopher on July 11, 2017
Q: In our combined RRIF's, my wife and I have a 10.88% weighting in Financials (TD, BNS, PWF) of which PWF is 2.7%. I would like to buy more lifeco shares and wonder whether I should sell the PWF and put the proceeds into SLF, or just buy SLF to make up about 5% of total portfolios weighting.
Read Answer Asked by John on March 17, 2017
Q: I am thinking of selling GWO and PWF and replacing them with a 50/50 split of ZUB and ZBK. I would appreciate you thoughts.
Thanks.
Read Answer Asked by Elliott on December 21, 2016
Q: I am retired and looking for relative safety and dividends. I already own 3 banks and am looking to add a insurance company to the mix. What would be your recommendation on the companies listed above ? Or do you have another Canadian company in this area that you would recommend over this list?

Thanks Ken
Read Answer Asked by Ken on December 12, 2016
Q: I own PWF.PR.L, RY.PR.O, BMO.PR.Z about equal amounts for a total of $150K which is about 5% of my holdings. They have been softening recently, is it time to sell and what would recommend? I have about 20% in bonds and balance heavily skewed to finance, utilities, infrastructure.
Read Answer Asked by Pierre on November 23, 2016